Google Falsely Flags Samsung Apps as 'Harmful,' Tells Users To Remove Them (arstechnica.com) 45
An anonymous reader shares a report: Most Android users have probably never seen Google Play Protect in action. The malware-scanning service is built into every Android device and is supposed to flag malware that users have installed. Recently it flagged some popular apps that are very much not malware: Samsung Wallet and Samsung Messages.
As spotted by 9to5Google, Samsung users have been getting hit with Play Protect warnings since earlier this month. Users on the Google Support forum have posted screenshots of Play Protect flagging the Samsung system apps, and even Samsung responded to the issue, explaining (in Korean) how to fix any damage caused by the bug. Samsung says (through translation) the issue was caused by "a temporary failure of the Google server" and should now be fixed.
As spotted by 9to5Google, Samsung users have been getting hit with Play Protect warnings since earlier this month. Users on the Google Support forum have posted screenshots of Play Protect flagging the Samsung system apps, and even Samsung responded to the issue, explaining (in Korean) how to fix any damage caused by the bug. Samsung says (through translation) the issue was caused by "a temporary failure of the Google server" and should now be fixed.
Maybe no malware, but definitely unwanted. (Score:5, Interesting)
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You can't remove them because they're part of the signed base Android image for the device. However, you CAN disable them. Except maybe Galaxy Store - but you can turn off all permissions at least.
Samsung's apps are all terrible, though.
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...if you had simply just gotten an iPhone like any sane person would have done.
Maybe you have money to burn. I don't.
Unless you are offering to buy me a new iphone...
Re: This would have all been avoided... (Score:2)
I have had the same phone for about 7 years, still gets software updates and full app compatibility, havenâ(TM)t need to replace a screen or battery. Not a single family member with Android has had their device for 3 years, either it breaks and once it stops being updated (typically within 1 year), you have a few months before it loses all Google-sponsored functionality (maps, auto etc).
So spend $500 every 2-3 years or $700 every 5-7 years, you do the math.
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Samsung Android devices mostly come with 5 years of Android updates nowadays, mine is on Android 13 and it came with 9 or 10 originally.
I bought mine at the start of 2021 after its predecessor (December 2015) was w-a-a-y out of support, back then Samsung only supplied updates for around two years and that was simply not enough. As for this bug, I have not seen it with my phone.
Most of the Samsung Apps I simply ignore, a couple of them are useful.
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on the other hand, my wife and one of my daughters love their original Pixel 3XL phones so much that they refuse to replace them.Five years and counting.
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Re: This would have all been avoided... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Cycles are not a good measure of battery longevity, because batteries degrade much faster when charged above 80% and below 20%. It's a curve that reaches peak aging at 100% SoC.
Most people don't discharge their phone down to 0% very often. Most phones have a feature that only charges above 80% or 90% just before the phone anticipates usage, e.g. the time you usually get up in the morning. So even with no special effort, most people will see much better than 500 cycles or two years.
I use an app called Batter
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My battery is at 70%. Given it had 48h of lifetime before, having only a 24h lifetime today doesn't matter to me.
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So spend $500 every 2-3 years or $700 every 5-7 years, you do the math.
There are many good phones for $200-300.
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...if you had simply just gotten an iPhone like any sane person would have done.
The iPhone has its own first party shovelware, and when you do remove the unwanted cruft it sometimes has the unfortunate side effect of breaking certain functionalities. Like if you remove the iTunes store, the built-in Shazam feature no longer works.
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S10e here, Android 12. Most Samsung apps can not be disabled nor uninstalled. A couple you can "force stop", but sometime later they're often running again. Very frustrating because I have not, do not, and never will use them. Wasting space, RAM, and CPU. And of course I worry about what they may be doing. But as I've posted before I do not use a phone for anything critical or private.
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Thanks. So if they're suspended and can't run, why bother starting them? Where are they, taking up RAM? Then swapped out? Seems dumb to bother in the first place.
In general years ago I learned to disable the various preloaders for big clunky programs. Sometimes called "quickstarters". Don't need, don't want.
Not paranoid at all. Cell phone spying / datamining is well known. Again, I simply never do anything banking, ecommerce, etc., on a phone.
For multiple reasons I would like to remove the Samsung apps I do
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In general years ago I learned to disable the various preloaders for big clunky programs.
On Android years ago you were very much right to do so. The system has changed significantly over the years. Some apps these days start just to register a hook with a push / notification service in the system and then get suspended, taking up no RAM, CPU or battery.
For multiple reasons I would like to remove the Samsung apps I don't use.
A feature of Android is that the base image is mounted read-only. The apps that are shipped with your phone image cannot be removed (without a complex dance of root access, remounting partitions RW and then manually uninstalling) only disabled. A
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Thank you so much. I've only dabbled, and often have somewhat older phones and OSes. The read-only image is a good idea, if it's truly secure. (...)
This reminds me of some years ago finding and using some software that lets you "roll your own" Windows installer packages. I forget the name of the software, but it worked like a charm to get rid of clutterware before the install. I think I've seen that for Android, but at some point it's not worth the time and mental investment. I'd rather go with a full Linux
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Yes, thanks, I've used it, as well as root login on the phone. Each Android version, and phone brand, does things differently, and as I posted above, at some point the time and mental effort is much better spent elsewhere in life.
Re:Maybe no malware, but definitely unwanted. (Score:5, Insightful)
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100% agree. In another recent discussion I posted that I don't think software should be protected by copyright, but rather something else- less powerful laws. When copyright laws give companies rights and power over me and my thing, there's something wrong ("something's rotten in Denmark").
Very recently someone else here wrote something similar about software and copyright.
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Maybe google are onto something here.
No they aren't. The apps you talk about are installed on a read-only partition. Even if Google were right you wouldn't be able to uninstall them. Mind you given you don't know how to long-click on the notification to disable it, or simply uncheck the Samsung Push Service in the Notifications settings I don't think you'd be able to uninstall them even if you were given the option given your lack of understanding how your phone works.
No I've not received a notification from any Samsung app on my Samsung phone
Turnabout is fair play. It's Google I wanna remove (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's a bit of a pain to run a phone without an app store as you have to manually load each app you want, but I've done it with LineageOS briefly on my Samsung Galaxy S5 (before reinstalling with Google services)
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There's no need for that. Check out Aurora Store. [f-droid.org]
You can install free apps from Google Play without signing in to an account.
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Well... (Score:4, Funny)
I have to agree with Google on this one. I don't know anyone that likes any of the Samsung apps.
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"Bad quality" and "malware" are generally two different things. Malware is usually either an app that tries to trick you into something you don't want to do, or has a known security hole. Bad quality is things like hard-to-use or broken features.
Google could merely give a quality warning if quality were the issue. Also, Google should offer a link with details and evidence, otherwise they will tick software vendors and users off, and risk antitrust lawsuits.
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The password manager is okay, and the browser is just Chrome with the ability to adblock. The rest of them are utter worthless trash.
I use the Samsung apps (Score:2)
I use the standard Samsung apps (Messages, Mail, Internet, Music, Gallery, Wallet). They work fine. Samsung Mail works well with my Dovecot/Postfix e-mail server. It's the intrusive Google apps that I always get rid of.
Do Tesla next, Google (Score:2)
Can't wait to see something else get accidentally flagged, such as the app you need to unlock your car. Oops.
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Hack it to flag Google.com as snoopware, which it is.
OEM (Score:2)
This looks like any OEM. Google let's them use their Store and both get to track you and sell your whereabouts. Great deal for them, right.
Why I don't run any OEM and haven't since the early days of Cyanogenmod, later LineageOS, and for a couple years now another custom ROM of my liking where I do feel like I'm in control.
Amazing this supposedly technically inclined crowd still struggles with such basics.
Er, no, not every android device (Score:1)
> built into every Android device
Er, no. Some android devices don't have Google malware installed.
Test (Score:2)
If this thing works right it would delete itself upon installation.
Well, they are harmful (Score:2)
It removed KDE Connect from my phone (Score:2)
The Play Store version of KDE Connect was out of date and didn't do what other versions could do (broken).
Granted, I probably let it get out of date, but it didn't ask if it could, it did it and then told me about it.
Fortunately the one in the Play Store has finally been updated, so I'm in better shape than before, still, I don't like the "BTW, I deleted your crap because I didn't like it" approach.
There's wrong and there's wrong (Score:2)
There's wrong, and then there's wrong. Most all that Samsung crap I would consider harmful, in that it's unwanted garbage that takes up space on the phone and probably adds extra security vulnerabilities. So they may be "wrong" that it's not specifically malware, but the upshot is they weren't really wrong.